No Habla Espanol (Bien)

When Chris and I first came to Costa Rica to look at the business that we eventually purchased, our main concern was that we neither of us speak Spanish. Neither of us are particularly good at learning languages either, so when we took the plunge, sold everything, and headed south…it was with the knowledge that we would need to learn…and fast.

Granted our first visit proved to us that we COULD muddle through without Spanish, since the area that we live in attracts quite a few tourists and many of the Ticos speak moderately good English. In fact, quite often when I first tried to practice my (crappy) Spanish skills on them, they would stare at me for a moment and then immediately switch to English in order to stop me from butchering their language any more.

It is both a good thing, and a bad thing. We can get by more the most part, however it does enable our procrastination when it comes to learning.

When we went home after our initial visit, I started trying to learn with the help of my duolingo app and a Spanish friend from work. After having heard the speed with which a native Spanish speaker can talk… I asked him to teach me how to ask the most important question I could think of.

Puedes habla mas despacio por favor, yo estoy apprendiendo Espanol?

It means “Can you talk more slowly please, I am learning Spanish.”

To this day I don’t think I have managed to get it out more than twice, but I can still rattle it off when I get truly desperate.

The app certainly helps with vocabulary and I can pick words out of a menu or from a sign with a decent amount of skill now but I still have difficulty picking the individual words out of a sentence when it is spoken at normal speed.

At that point, I tend to panic…then stare blankly at the speaker, and respond with… Habla ingles?

I know, I know. I’m a coward. I can hold a fairly decent conversation with my duolingo app but somehow my confidence level is quite low when out in public.

Stll…I’m trying. Today I decided to go ‘off the reservation’ so-to-speak and look up some Spanish verbs.

Duolingo, as good as it is, teaches you the verbs as it comes up in relation to the lessons but doesn’t really give you a way to look up a certain verb if you need to use it. For that I have to rely on my translator app.

I decided to look a few things up online and write them down so that I can have a reference if I need it.

Here is what I learned today. The reason I often get the ending wrong on certain verbs when I’m using my app is that they aren’t all conjugated the same way (should have remembered that from my French classes!)

Most verbs end in AR, ER or IR and each group has different verb endings when they are conjugated.

Now I have to remember the proper pronoun, then the proper verb, whether it is masculine or feminine and then add the correct ending to the verb. No problem, right? And that’s just on the present tense because we haven’t segued into anything more complicated than that yet.

By the time senility sets in, I may have figured out the basics of how to speak Spanish…sigh.

The good news is….I have lots of time…AND I am surrounded by people to practice on…if I can work up the nerve to try.

Me llamo es Joy. Yo no habla Espanol bien, pero yo estoy apprendiendo.

I hope that says what I think it says…

Toodles for now and Pura Vida!

PS, I found the chart on a site called Spanish411.net it seems to have lots of helpful information!